Laurie Griffen should have heeded Benjamin Franklin’s warning to “Beware the hobby that eats,” as she let her hobby eat from someone else’s table.

Griffen, 53, of Redwood City was sentenced Tuesday to 15 months in federal prison for mail fraud and credit card-fraud convictions after embezzling $175,000 from a San Francisco restaurant where she kept the books. Her prison term starts Nov. 7.

As in a previous Alameda County case, Griffen spent much of the money she stole from Momo’s restaurant — about $105,000 — on collectible dolls.

Griffen pleaded guilty in January to one count of mail fraud and one count of unauthorized use of a credit card. She admitted that while bookkeeper for Momo’s between May 2003 and June 2005, she embezzled about $175,000 by abusing her authority to write checks in the restaurant’s name.

To avoid raising suspicion, she altered the computerized accounting records to show a different payee on the checks. She also obtained a credit card in her and Momo’s name and then used the card to make purchases.

U.S. Secret Service agents searched Griffen’s home last October for dolls bought with the restaurant’s money, according to a sentencing memo filed by prosecutors.

“The house contained hundreds of dolls, including some in their original boxes,” the memo said, adding agents identified some of those she’d bought on Momo’s dime. Griffen has agreed to forfeit those and sell others to pay the $175,000 restitution she now owes.

Griffen in 1997 was convicted of felony grand theft — later reduced to a misdemeanor — for embezzling more than

$100,000 from the Hayward Fishery and Dublin Fishery restaurants, for which she’d been a bookkeeper since 1991. Much of that money was also spent on dolls, the sentencing memo says.

“Court documents in connection with the Alameda County case show that Griffen and the owners of the restaurants entered into a stipulation whereby Griffen agreed to sell some of the dolls in her collection in order to repay up to $20,000 of the money owed to the restaurants,” the memo says.

Griffen’s lawyers filed their own sentencing memo claiming she suffers from “chiefly a major depressive disorder, but also dysthymic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and personality disorder” which figured in her crime. Nonetheless, they wrote, she’s “extremely remorseful.”

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco ordered Griffen to take part in a mental health program as directed by her probation officer.